SparkNotes: Wuthering Heights: Context Wuthering Heights Table of Contents Plot Overview Wuthering Heights, which has long been one of the most popular and highly regarded novels in English literature, seemed to hold little promise when it was published in 1847, selling very poorly and receiving only a few mixed reviews. Victorian readers found the book shocking and inappropriate in its depiction of passionate, ungoverned love and cruelty (despite the fact that the novel portrays no sex or bloodshed), and the work was virtually ignored. Even Emily Brontë’s sister Charlotte—an author whose works contained similar motifs of Gothic love and desolate landscapes—remained ambivalent toward the unapologetic intensity of her sister’s novel. In a preface to the book, which she wrote shortly after Emily Brontë’s death, Charlotte Brontë stated, “Whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff, I do not know. I scarcely think it is.” Emily Brontë lived an eccentric, closely guarded life. She was born in 1818, two years after Charlotte and a year and a half before her sister Anne, who also became an author.

Her father worked as a church rector, and her aunt, who raised the Brontë children after their mother died, was deeply religious. Emily Brontë did not take to her aunt’s Christian fervor; the character of Joseph, a caricature of an evangelical, may have been inspired by her aunt’s religiosity. The Brontës lived in Haworth, a Yorkshire village in the midst of the moors. These wild, desolate expanses—later the setting of Wuthering Heights—made up the Brontës’ daily environment, and Emily lived among them her entire life. She died in 1848, at the age of thirty. As witnessed by their extraordinary literary accomplishments, the Brontë children were a highly creative group, writing stories, plays, and poems for their own amusement. Largely left to their own devices, the children created imaginary worlds in which to play. Yet the sisters knew that the outside world would not respond favorably to their creative expression; female authors were often treated less seriously than their male counterparts in the nineteenth century. Thus the Brontë sisters thought it best to publish their adult works under assumed names.

Charlotte wrote as Currer Bell, Emily as Ellis Bell, and Anne as Acton Bell. Their real identities remained secret until after Emily and Anne had died, when Charlotte at last revealed the truth of their novels’ authorship. Today, Wuthering Heights has a secure position in the canon of world literature, and Emily Brontë is revered as one of the finest writers—male or female—of the nineteenth century. Like Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights is based partly on the Gothic tradition of the late eighteenth century, a style of literature that featured supernatural encounters, crumbling ruins, moonless nights, and grotesque imagery, seeking to create effects of mystery and fear. But Wuthering Heights transcends its genre in its sophisticated observation and artistic subtlety. The novel has been studied, analyzed, dissected, and discussed from every imaginable critical perspective, yet it remains unexhausted. And while the novel’s symbolism, themes, structure, and language may all spark fertile exploration, the bulk of its popularity may rest on its unforgettable characters. As a shattering presentation of the doomed love affair between the fiercely passionate Catherine and Heathcliff, it remains one of the most haunting love stories in all of literature.

Emily Brontë – author of Wuthering Heights - The British Library Emily Brontë by Patrick Branwell Brontë © National Portrait Gallery, London Biography Best-known for her novel Wuthering Heights (1847), Emily Brontë also wrote over 200 poems which her sister Charlotte Brontë thought had ‘a peculiar music – wild, melancholy, and elevating’. Emily was the fifth of the six children of Patrick Brontë, Irish-born perpetual curate of the remote Yorkshire moorland parish of Haworth. After the death of their mother Maria when Emily was three, the children were given an inspiring and wide-ranging liberal and academic education by their father and thoroughly instructed in domestic ‘order, method and neatness’ by their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell. For amusement the siblings invented imaginary worlds, drawing maps and writing stories and magazines – all in tiny micro-script, as if written by their miniature toy soldiers. Charlotte and Branwell created the kingdom of Angria; always stubbornly independent, Emily created the breakaway island of Gondal with her younger sister Anne. Surviving poems about this fantasy world show the influence of Wordsworth, Walter Scott and Byron.

By then Emily was the tallest of the sisters, slim and graceful with – in the words of family friend Ellen Nussey – ‘kindling liquid eyes’. She was, however, very reserved, and it soon emerged that she was unsuited to life away from Haworth. ‘Stronger than a man’, Charlotte wrote, ‘simpler than a child, her nature stood alone.’ Emily’s work first appeared in print when, on Charlotte’s urging, a collection of the three sisters’ poems was privately published in 1846 under the names of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; outstanding among them is Emily’s ‘No coward soul is mine’. Wuthering Heights, which was published in 1847, is reminiscent of Gondal in its moorland setting and passionate war between two families. One review dismissed it as ‘coarse and loathsome’. Emily began another novel, but it was destroyed by Charlotte after Emily’s death, aged 30, from tuberculosis in December 1848.

Wuthering Heights was only rescued from obscurity in the 1880s, championed by Algernon Swinburne, Matthew Arnold, and G K Chesterton, who described it as ‘written by an eagle’. Further information about the life of Emily Brontë can be found here via the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Name Alll about the author of Wuthering Heights Works This page is optimised for print Source: COMMON KNOWLEDGE/CITED. Much of the information on this page such as the timeline can be found at many reliable sources. Other information comes from books and is cited where possible. Translate this page: Emily Jane Brontë The author of Wuthering Heights was Emily Jane Brontë, the middle of the world-famous Brontë sisters (pronounced BRON-tee, not bron-TAY, see Pronunciations ). An isolated, painfully shy woman, she produced one of the most distinctive novels in literature and some of the greatest poetry. Her character and life are as singular as her book. Description painted by her brother Branwell in 1834 Emily had an unusual character, extremely unsocial and reserved, with few friends outside her family.

She preferred the company of animals to people and rarely travelled, forever yearning for the freedom of Haworth and the moors. She had a will of iron – a well known story about her is that she was bitten by a (possibly) rabid dog which resulted in her walking calmly into the kitchen and cauterising the wound herself with a hot iron. 1 She had unconventional religious beliefs, rarely attending church services and, unlike the other children, never teaching in the Sunday School. In appearance, she was lithesome and graceful, the tallest of the Brontë children (her coffin measured five feet seven inches – 1.7 metres) but ate sparingly and would starve herself when unhappy or unable to get her own way. As her literary works suggest, she was highly intelligent, teaching herself German while working in the kitchen (her favourite place outside of the moors) and playing the piano well enough to teach it in Brussels. Her stubbornness lasted to the end where she refused to see a doctor or rest while she was dying of tuberculosis.

In 1871, Ellen Nussey, a lifelong friend of the Brontës, wrote of her first impressions of the fifteen-year-old Emily in Reminiscences of Charlotte Brontë 2 : Rosemary McHale Brontes of Haworth Emily Brontë had by this time acquired a lithesome, graceful figure. She was the tallest person in the house, except her father. Her hair, which was naturally as beautiful as Charlotte's, was in the same unbecoming tight curl and frizz, and there was the same want of complexion. She had very beautiful eyes – kind, kindling, liquid eyes; but she did not often look at you; she was too reserved. Their colour might be said to be dark grey, at other times dark blue, they varied so. She talked very little. She and Anne were like twins – inseparable companions, and in the very closest sympathy, which never had any interruption. Charlotte famously said of her sister: Stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature stood alone.

3 Link to page of portraits (genuine and otherwise) of Emily Brontë Genealogy Link to a graphical timeline of Emily and her siblings History Irish-born Patrick Brontë (who changed his surname from Brunty) and his Cornish wife Maria Branwell, moved to Thornton in Yorkshire where Emily was born 198 years ago on 30 July 1818. She was the fifth of six children. Her second name was probably inspired by her godmother, (her mother's cousin) although it is unknown where 'Emily' came from. 4 In 1820, the family moved to Haworth , where Emily's father was to be perpetual curate. Haworth was an unhealthy, poor town and the children spent much of their time either roaming on the nearby moors or in the parsonage, creating stories and poems about imaginary lands. The four eldest Brontë daughters were enrolled as pupils at the Clergy Daughter's School at Cowan Bridge in 1824. The following year Maria and Elizabeth, the two eldest daughters, became ill, left the school and died; Charlotte and Emily returned home.

For a poor clergyman's daughter, there was little hope of a career beyond a governess or teacher and Emily began work as the latter at Law Hill school , near Halifax in 1838 but hated the job, starving herself and returning home about six months later. In February 1842,with her sister Charlotte, she attended a private school in Brussels with the intention of preparing themselves to open their own teaching establishment. Emily again found herself unsuited to the life and the sisters returned home in November. They tried to open up a school at their home in 1844 but had no pupils and Emily eventually accepted a domestic life in the parsonage, cooking and looking after her father. The Brontë sisters in St. Michael Church Charlotte, Emily and Anne published a joint collection of their poetry in 1846 under the pen-names Currer, Ellis 5 and Acton Bell. In 1847, Wuthering Heights and Anne's Agnes Grey were published in a three volume set to mixed reviews (Wuthering Heights comprising two of the volumes, Agnes Grey the other). Wuthering Heights was republished in 1850 under Emily's real name.

Her brother Branwell died in September 1848 and Emily caught a chill during the funeral. This brought on the tuberculosis that she had probably originally caught when nursing Branwell. Refusing all medical help until too late, she died 168 years ago surrounded by her family on 19 December, 1848, about two in the afternoon. She was interred in the family vault of the church opposite her Haworth home three days later. (She was so emaciated when she died that her coffin was just 16 inches/40 cm wide.) The record of Emily's burial Link to "FAQ: How could Emily Brontë write Wuthering Heights?" Works Emily (and her sisters') first published work was the book Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, published in 1846 with their own money. It was not a success, selling only two copies (although it did better as a reprint after the success of the novels). The sisters and Branwell had written poetry from childhood and the venture came about when Charlotte discovered a book of Emily's poetry in 1845 and persuaded her (with difficulty) to combine them with Charlotte's and Anne's.

Despite the failure of the book, the sisters continued their literary career, turning to prose. Emily only wrote the one novel, Wuthering Heights, although she was probably working on a second when she died. However, no trace of this book remains. We only think she was writing it because her publisher, T C Newby, sent her a letter dated 15 February 1848 which said: I am much obliged by your kind note and shall have great pleasure in making arrangements for your next novel. I would not hurry its completion, for I think you are quite right not to let it go before the world until well satisfied with it, for much depends on your new work. If it be an improvement on your first, you will have established yourself as a first rate novelist, but if it fall short the Critics will be too apt to say that you have expended your talent in your first novel. I shall therefore have pleasure in accepting it upon the understanding that its completion be in your own time. You can read some contemporary reviews of Wuthering Heights on the Critical Reviews page . Some of her poems (and one by Charlotte) can be seen by clicking on the link below.

Why those subversive Brontë sisters still hypnotise us | Books | The Guardian The Observer Why those subversive Brontë sisters still hypnotise us The bicentenary of Charlotte’s birth next month has produced a slew of events that highlight the sisters’ appeal to all ages Mia Wasikowska in the 2011 film version of Charlotte’s most famous book, Jane Eyre. Photograph: Laurie Sparham/Focus Features Share on Messenger Close They are beloved by everyone from misunderstood teens and fools for love to the serious-minded middle-aged and those of a critical bent. Now the Brontë sisters are taking centre stage again as the bicentenary of Charlotte’s birth next month brings a host of events at their Yorkshire home and elsewhere. At Haworth parsonage on the bleakly beautiful Yorkshire moors, where Charlotte and her sisters Emily and Anne lived and wrote and now home to the Brontë Parsonage Museum , the bicentenary will be marked by a full programme from the Brontë Society. Highlights include Charlotte Great and Small , an exhibition curated by the novelist Tracy Chevalier, which combines new art works with existing pieces, and the launch of Reader, I Married Him, a collection of short stories.

Happy 200th birthday Charlotte Brontë: illustrating Jane Eyre – in pictures Read more But it’s not just the Brontë Society that is succumbing to Brontëmania. The National Portrait Gallery has an exhibition, Celebrating Charlotte Brontë: 1816-1855 , which will display personal items including previously unseen paintings, letters and journals from the parsonage museum alongside portraits from the gallery’s collection. BBC Radio 3 recently paid homage to Charlotte with the series I Am Yours Sincerely, in which a number of her letters were read, and Radio 4 has been dramatising Jane Eyre in 15-minute slots on Woman’s Hour this month. On Saturday night, BBC2 screened Being the Brontës, in which presenter Martha Kearney, journalist Lucy Mangan and novelist Helen Oyeyemi debated their favourite sister and examined their continuing appeal.

Claire Harman’s well-reviewed biography of Charlotte is published in paperback next month, while three new novels will also consider the Brontë legacy: Catherine Lowell’s much praised debut The Madwoman Upstairs, which centres on a young woman who is the Brontë family’s last living descendant; Sam Baker’s hugely anticipated thriller , The Woman Who Ran, a modern-day retelling of Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; and Lyndsay Faye’s “satirical romance” Jane Steele, which riffs on Jane Eyre for its tale of a Victorian female serial killer. Later this year Sally Wainwright will follow her crime series Happy Valley with To Walk Invisible, a two-hour drama focusing on the Brontës’ lives between 1845 and 1848 “when they were all either drawn or forced back to the family home”. So why exactly do the Brontë sisters, these rural curate’s daughters with only a handful of novels between them, continue to fascinate us?

From the moment Jane Eyre was published in 1847 they have exerted an almost hypnotic pull: where other literary sensations flash bright, then fade to earth, the Brontës endure, their stories adapted again and again for both stage and screenJane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Pinterest Charlotte Brontë circa 1840. Photograph: Getty Images “I think a lot of it is that we’re fascinated by the idea that these three women living in a cold, cramped house in Yorkshire wrote these extraordinary novels about the most intense human experiences,” says author and playwright Samantha Ellis, whose book, Take Courage, about Anne Brontë , will be published early next year. “There’s something very appealing about the idea that they pushed back against the limits of their world. There are lots of neater, better planned books, but the Brontë novels work because they’re open-ended. We don’t know what Anne, Emily and Charlotte really wanted us to think and that means we take away something new each time.” Certainly it’s true that there’s something almost mythical about the Brontë creation story, the idea of these three isolated young women writing so desperately that the words were almost flung on to the page.

Ted Hughes called them the “three weird sisters”, intentionally summoning Macbeth’s blasted heath to Haworth parsonage. To his wife Sylvia Plath, who paid homage in a poem named Wuthering Heights , they “wrote … in a house redolent with ghosts”. Daphne du Maurier was so obsessed that she paid homage twice – to Jane Eyre with the sharp-edged and haunting Rebecca and to Wuthering Heights with the wild menace of Jamaica Inn – and writers from Jean Rhys and Muriel Spark to Emma Tennant and Fay Weldon have reimagined their lives and work. “I think their tragic real-life experiences [the deaths of their mother and older sisters and later of their brother Branwell] undoubtedly give added appeal to readers,” says Kearney. “It’s amazing to think that Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are still so popular. I think it’s the sheer power of the storytelling – who can forget the madwoman in the attic or Heathcliff?” Lowell agrees.

“One of the things I most love about the Brontës is that they give the lie to the notion that to be a great writer you have to have epic life experiences – that whole Ernest Hemingway, Jack London thing,” she says. “Emily never left her home, but she wrote Wuthering Heights. To be a great writer you just have to be a great observer. There’s also a real nugget of truth in all the books. Jane Eyre is a great lesson in authenticity and being true to yourself which still resonates in an era when women are still told so much how they should dress and act.” Yet it is also true that the Brontë myth can confuse more than enlighten. Writing in the Guardian in 2011, Blake Morrison astutely noted that “the morbid caricature that developed in the wake of [Elizabeth] Gaskell’s biography – with Haworth depicted as a remote and sinister spot and the parsonage as a gloomy hideout for a trio of unworldly spinsters – is largely nonsense. The Brontë letters … are sharp and sometimes funny.

Their novels … full of insights into the social conditions of the day.” The Brontë Sisters by Patrick Branwell Brontë. Circa 1834. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery/Corbis/Corbis Indeed, the most striking thing about the Brontë novels is how subversive they are. On the surface these might seem like tales of love lost and won, of happy endings and reader, I married him, but they are also strange and spiky tales. “There’s a lot of wanting and yearning, not all of it romantic,” says Ellis. “These are difficult books to contain. They’re over-egged and weird and often troubling.” Thus Jane takes Rochester once he has been crippled and blinded, unable to exert his male power. Wuthering Heights is less the story of wild romantic love as much as a tale of abuse, madness and unfettered rage, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is more concerned with the act that frees Helen, her slamming of the door against her drunken husband, than it is with her conventional end. “There’s a clear line from Rochester to Heathcliff to Arthur Huntingdon,” says Baker.

“All three male leads are really abusive.” The forgotten genius: why Anne wins the battle of the Brontës Read more Nor does the uncomfortable subject matter stop there. While Wuthering Heights stands apart simply by dint of its strangeness – like it or loathe it, there is nothing else quite like it in literature – Charlotte and Anne were tackling subjects that women did not normally write about: the need to find your own place in the world; the tribulations of having to do soul-sapping, back-breaking, mind-numbing work simply to survive; the problems of being trapped in an abusive marriage. “I think of the Brontës as outsider authors,” says Baker. “Charlotte and Anne in particular are really radical and because of that their stories transcend their time. The themes feel just as relevant today.” How the moors changed my mind about the Brontës | Lucy Mangan Read more Nor is it just women who respond to their work. “I know lots of men who love the Brontës,” says Ellis.

“There’s a bit of myth that they’re writers for women, that it’s all about Heathcliff and Rochester, but more men read them than you’d think.” Yet whoever is reading them, they’ll always have one sister they think of as “theirs”. “Definitely,” says Ellis. “You’re either Charlotte, Emily or Anne and you can tell a lot by which book someone claims as their own. I was doing a reading in London last year about Jane Eyre versus Wuthering Heights and a teenage girl came up to me afterwards and said to me, ‘I will never give up Cathy and Heathcliff, not now, not when I am 40.’ And that’s how it should be. Your passions are your own.” The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell is published by Quercus Press, £14.99; The Woman Who Ran, by Sam Baker, is published by Harper Press, £7.99; Being the Brontës is available on BBC iPlayer WATCH OUT FOR … ■ Charlotte Great and Small – exhibition curated by novelist Tracy Chevalier exploring the contrast between the tiny things in life and Charlotte’s huge desires.

Includes items that belonged to Charlotte and new works commissioned by Chevalier and made for the bicentenary. Runs at Brontë Parsonage Museum until next January. ■ The Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing (9-11 September) includes The Magic of the Miniature where Jessie Burton, Grace McCleen and Tracy Chevalier discuss the psychology of the miniature, featuring readings from Burton’s and McCleen’s work. ■ Grace McCleen is writer in residence at the Brontë Parsonage Museum during 2016. The work produced during this time will be shared in 2017. ■ Children’s author and former children’s laureate Jacqueline Wilson is an ambassador for Charlotte Brontë during the bicentenary year.

Work begins on Old School Room in Haworth after eight years of fundraising Published: 3 Aug 2016 Brontë Society secures treasured heirloom belonging to the sisters’ mother, with letters, poems and short stories by family members tucked inside Published: 20 Jul 2016 It has long been thought the author was inappropriately attired at the famously awkward meeting with her hero Published: 15 Jun 2016 There’s an unholy row going on at the parsonage in Haworth as the keepers of the sisters’ literary legacy split into two warring factions Published: 14 Jun 2016 bronte, emily Don't forget to check out the link to Wuthering Heights Part of the famous Brontë literary family, Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights , her only novel. Much less is known of Emily than her two other literary sisters, Charlotte and Anne . Emily lived with her family at Haworth on the Yorkshire moors, and spent most of her life there. It was here that she developed a passion for the moors, which she expressed in the setting of Wuthering Heights.

She went to the same school as the other Brontë sisters where Maria and Elizabeth died. Emily was very attached to her home at Yorkshire, and was much more reclusive than other members of her family. At her brother Branwell’s funeral, Emily caught a cold and later died of tuberculosis. Like her siblings, Emily was an avid reader and relied on her imagination, an imagination that was to produce Wuthering Heights. Also like her sisters, Emily wrote under a pseudonym to disguise her gender, and chose the name “Ellis Bell”. Early reviewers of the novel presumed “Ellis Bell” to be male. Whereas the other Brontë sisters produced work that was discernibly autobiographical in origin, Wuthering Heights is clearly a less autobiographical and more impersonal work. First published in 1847, the novel received bad reviews to the disappointment of the Brontë family. Emily died the year after publication at the age of 30, unaware that her novel was to become considered one of the greatest works of English literature ever written. A unique and complex novel, the structure of Wuthering Heights comprises a series of flashbacks and overlapping time frames, however, the novel retains structural symmetry.

The structure is further complicated by the intertwining relationships of the Linton and Earnshaw families. The novel spans three generations of these two families, the story linking the families and the generations through the theme of revenge. The narration is told through multiple perspectives, and this contributes to the effect of the novel’s moral neutrality. Where the other two Brontë sisters used their work for didactic purposes and as social critique, Wuthering Heights stays close to the romantic themes of love and death, where the passion between Heathcliff and Cathy is the centre of the novel. Wuthering Heights is most frequently described as gothic in style, and critics have analysed the novel’s influences, most frequently citing the work of Byron as an influence on Emily’s writing. The style combines direct storytelling and symbolic conflicts, producing an effect of emotional intensity. Allott, Miriam. Ed. Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights. A Selection of Critical Essays. London: Macmillan, 1970. Davies, Stevie. Emily Brontë. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1988. Gordon, Felicia. A Preface to the Brontës.

London and New York: Longman, 1989. Emily Bronte Overview OVERVIEW OF EMILY BRONTË Emily Brontë has become mythologized both as an individual and as one of the Brontë sisters. She has been cast as Absolute Individual, as Tormented Genius, and as Free Spirit Communing with Nature; the trio of sisters–Charlotte, Emily, and Anne–have been fashioned into Romantic Rebels, as well as Solitary Geniuses. Their lives have been sentimentalized, their psyches psychoanalyzed, and their home life demonized. In truth, their lives and home were strange and often unhappy. Their father was a withdrawn man who dined alone in his own room; their Aunt Branwell, who raised them after the early death of their mother, also dined alone in her room. The two oldest sisters died as children. For three years Emily supposedly spoke only to family members and servants. Their brother Branwell, an alcoholic and a drug addict, put the family through the hell of his ravings and threats of committing suicide or murdering their father, his physical and mental degradation, his bouts of delirium tremens, and, finally, his death.

As children, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne had one another and books as companions; in their isolation, they created an imaginary kingdom called Angria and filled notebooks describing its turbulent history and character. Around 1831, thirteen-year old Emily and eleven-year old Anne broke from the Angrian fantasies, which Branwell and Charlotte had dominated, to create the alternate history of Gondal. Emily maintained her interest in Gondal and continued to spin out the fantasy with pleasure till the end of her life. Nothing of the Gondal history remains except Emily's poems, the references in the journal fragments by Anne and Emily, the birthday papers of 1841 and 1845, and Anne's list of the names of characters and locations. Little is known directly of Emily Brontë. All that survives of Emily's own words about herself is two brief letters , two diary papers written when she was thirteen and sixteen, and two birthday papers , written when she was twenty-three and twenty-seven. Almost everything that is known about her comes from the writings of others, primarily Charlotte.

Even Charlotte's novel, Shirley, has been used as a biographical source because Charlotte created Shirley, as she told her biographer and friend Elizabeth Gaskell, to be "what Emily Brontë would have been had she been placed in health and prosperity." Often Wuthering Heights is used to construct a biography of Emily's life, personality, and beliefs. Edward Chitharn equates Emily, the well-read housekeeper of the family home, with Nelly based on the similarity of their roles and the similarity of their names, "Nelly" being short for "Ellen" which is similar to Emily's pseudonym "Ellis." The supposed anorexia of Catherine, who stops eating after Edgar's ultimatum, and of Heathcliff, who stops eating at the end, is used as proof of Emily's anorexia; support for this interpretation is found in the tendency of all four Brontë siblings not to eat when upset. Alternately, Emily's supposed anorexia is used to explain aspects of the novel.

Katherine Frank characterizes Emily as a constantly hungry anorexic who denies her constant hunger; "Even more importantly," Frank asks, "how was this physical hunger related to a more pervasive hunger in her life–hunger for power and experience, for love and happiness, fame and fortune and fulfilment?" Well, one expression of these hungers is the intense focus on food, hunger, and starvation in Wuthering Heights . Furthermore, the kitchen is the main setting, and most of the passionate or violent scenes occur there. Similarly, Emily's poems are used to interpret her novel, particularly those poems discussing isolation, rebellion, and freedom. Readings of Wuthering Heights as a mystical novel, a religious novel, or a visionary novel call on "No coward soul is mine," one of her best poems. The well known "Riches I hold in light esteem" is cited to explain her choice of a reclusive lifestyle, as is"A Chainless Life." The fact that many of these poems were written as part of the Gondal chronicles and are dramatic speeches of Gondal characters is blithely ignored or explained away.

(In 1844 Emily went through her poems, destroying some, revising others, and writing new poems; she collected them and clearly labeled the Gondal poems.) The poems and Wuthering Heights have also been connected. The editor of her poems, C.W. Hatfield, sees the same mind at work in both, and Charles Morgan perceives in them "the same unreality of this world, the same greater reality of another... and a unique imagination." Biography Reviews of Emily Bronte and Her Sisters | New Republic By Robert Morss Lovett July 18, 1928 The Brontës have always been novelists’ novelists, perhaps because their history is novelistic material—the six children in their bleak setting of the Yorkshire moors, their struggle against fate, marked by recurrent death—Maria and Elizabeth dying in childhood—Branwell’s fantastic tragedy, the simultaneous illumination of three personalities in Jane Eyre , Wuthering Heights , and Agnes Grey , fame and then death once more—Emily, Anne, Charlotte. There was enough in this story in its purely external aspects to challenge a novelist. Mrs. Gaskell was the first biographer. Mrs.

Humphry Ward introduced their works in the definitive edition. Then under the more penetrating methods of modern psychology their situation took on a new interest. Miss May Sinclair wrote her enthusiastic study of The Three Brontës . Now comes Miss Romer Wilson with her version of the sister whose fame, long overshadowed by Jane Eyre and Vilette , is now in the ascendant with Wuthering Heights and the Poems alike revealing a personality so far beyond the usual limits of human nature as to seem miraculous. One reason why the Brontës have held such fascination for novelists and critics of fiction is that they afford extraordinary examples of the relation of personal experience to art. Outwardly their lives were so limited as to offer only the simplest material for record. In the case of Charlotte, we are compelled to smile at the overemphasis with which she constantly treats the trivial. An encounter between rival Sunday schools in Shirley is described with the seriousness of a battle. Lucy Snowe’s ordeal at meeting a class of school-girls in Villette may be compared with Stevenson’s fight in the round-house in Kidnapped .

The only escape of the sisters was to the wide, windy spaces of the moors, or to the wider spaces still of the imagination. With Charlotte the line between the world that she knew and the world that she imagined is as clear as the difference between Lowood and Thornfield, between Mr. Brocklehurst and Mr. Rochester. With Emily the fusion is far more complete. The poems, and still more the novel Wuthering Heights contain echoes of external reality, intimations of actual experience, but the line between fact and fiction is never drawn. Emily was in a sense the most suppressed of the four children who grew to maturity. She was the household drudge. The shyness which to Charlotte and Anne was embarrassment and suffering was to Emily agony and bloody sweat. It operated as a complete barrier to intercourse with strangers. Accordingly, the ways by which her spirit grew into greatness and by what experience it was nourished, remain a mystery. A few years ago Miss Sinclair was congratulating us on this enduring silence which surrounds Emily Brontë. “By the mercy of heaven the swarm of gossips and theorists have passed her by.

She has no legend, or hardly any.” Yet she warned us that “there may be somewhere some awful worshipper of Emily Brontë, impatient of her silence, and unsatisfied with her strange, her virgin and inaccessible beauty, who will some day make up something of a love-affair, some passion kindred to Catherine Earnshaw’s passion for Heathcliff of which the moors have kept the secret: and he will tell his tale.” This philosophy is fulfilled in some sort by Miss Romer Wilson. As a biographer of Emily Brontë, Miss Wilson presents herself with certain indubitable credentials. A Yorkshire woman with memories of a childhood on the moors, she is prepared to enter into the environment of her heroine. As a novelist who has explored the obscure depths of the unconscious, she finds clues everywhere to the labyrinthine ways of personality. Her method is to reconstruct Emily’s experience by psychoanalysis from the themes and material of her poetry and fiction. Now it may be that Emily as a child was shut up in a room associated with death and haunted by ghosts and phantoms, fell into a fit. This may be the origin of the recurring prison theme in her poetry; and Charlotte may have recalled the originating episode in Jane Eyre.

Again, it may be that Emily suffered from jealousy of Branwell’s high place in the family, and “solaced her jealousy with contemplation of the unrelieved blackness of her future, in contrast to the unrelieved brilliance of his”; that “in secret, in imagination she began to foster and love a dark soul in herself, a dark thing that grew and grew upon her and ultimately possessed her, body and soul” and became Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. These are interesting excursions into the field of conjectural biography. Miss Wilson makes the further hypothesis that Emily was in Bradford in 1837 or 1838, based on the date of one poem, and “that some event took place with grave results to herself” during these years when “she began to write of betrayal and vengeance,” and shortly afterward “of guilt, of shame, of crime, and of tarnished name.” All this, however, is incapable of test by external evidence. Charlotte’s copious correspondence gives no ground for believing that Wuthering Heights is an allegory of the Brontë family life, or that Heathcliff in Emily’s form was a specter at their hearth.

Nor is it likely that Emily could have spent any considerable time at Bradford (though Branwell was there in 1837-8) without some mention in those letters which deal so fully with the family life. Miss Wilson, as a partisan of Emily, is a bit hard on Charlotte, for whom, nevertheless, she professes great admiration. “Charlotte’s vices were inability to yield an inch, and a horrid partiality for tampering with the lives of others.” No doubt Charlotte was by character and position the executive of the family. But when Miss Wilson blames Charlotte, first, for reading Emily’s private poetry, and then, after securing permission to publish, for editing it, she is patently unfair. Undoubtedly it is a tragedy that we have not every line of Emily’s poetry as it was written; but if Emily had had her way we should have none of it. In view of such inferences as Miss Wilson draws from that we have, we may forgive Charlotte’s discretion. Miss Wilson and Miss Sinclair agree in finding a close connection between the series of Gondal poems, discovered by Mr.

Shorter, and “Wuthering Heights.” In both it is impossible to distinguish certainly what is objective and dramatic, what is subjective and personal. Miss Sinclair believes that “the impersonal would be found in a mass out of all proportion to the other.” Miss Wilson thinks the contrary. But Miss Sinclair’s conclusion ill do for both, that in respect to the Gondal characters, Emily “was these people; she lived indistinguishably and interchangeably their tumultuous and passionate life.” In the same mysterious sense, “she was Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw.” Canon Dimnet’s book has very long been the classic account of the Brontës for French readers. It is a contrast to Miss Romer’s book in every way, being altogether decorous, discreet, demure. Canon Dimnet leaves Charlotte in the center of her group. He looks with kindly amusement at her provincialism and at the naiveté of her art, which a French public would scorn; with gentle tolerance of her religious bigotry. As all these qualities appear undisguised in Villette, he does not agree with English critics who regard that novel as her best.

As to Charlotte’s experience in Brussels, he accepts quietly what Miss Sinclair asserts vociferously, that she was never in love with M. Héger, that Madame Héger’s jealousy had no foundation, and that when she wrote, “I returned to Brussels after Aunt’s death, prompted by what seemed an irresistible impulse. I was punished for my selfish folly by a total hindrance of more than two years of happiness and peace of mind,” she was referring to the difficulties at Haworth which had risen in her absence. Canon Dimnet has not changed his original assertion in the text—”Not a word in Charlotte’s correspondence permits the supposition that she was in love with her master”—but he prints in his appendix the letters which Charlotte wrote to M. Héger after her return and which the son of Professor Héger presented in 1913 to the British Museum. There are many ways of loving and being in love, and possibly some definition might be devised which would exclude from these categories the state of mind which Charlotte’s letters clearly show. M. Héger was evidently reluctant to write to Charlotte, and had rationed her in her letters to him to one every six months.

What this limitation meant to Charlotte may be seen from this passage written in January, 1845: Mr. Taylor has returned. I asked him if he had a letter for me. “No; nothing.” “Patience,” said I—“his sister will be here soon.” Miss Taylor has returned. “I have nothing for you from Monsieur Héger,” says she; “neither letter nor message.” Having realized the meaning of these words, I said to myself what I should say to another similarly placed: “You must be resigned, and above all do not grieve at a misfortune which you have not deserved.” I strove to restraint my tears, to utter no complaint. But when one does not complain, when one seeks to dominate oneself with a tyrant’s grip, the faculties start into rebellion and one pays for external calm with an internal struggle that is almost unbearable. Day and night I find neither rest nor peace. If I sleep I am disturbed by tormenting dreams in which I see you, always severe, always grave, always incensed against me. Forgive me then, Monsieur, if I adopt the course of writing to you again. How can I endure life if I make no effort to ease its sufferings?

In the light of these letters, one can hardly fail to recognize the sojourn of Brussels as the most important experience of Charlotte Brontë’s life. M. Héger was responsible for her first novel, “The Professor,” and for her last. He is to Charlotte’s genius what Heathcliff is to Emily’s. Read More Sign up for your daily dose of politics, culture, and big ideas.

Sign Up Emily Brontë Biography Emily Brontë Biography Bookmark this page Manage My Reading List "Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book — baffling all regular criticism; yet, it is impossible to begin and not finish it; and quite as impossible to lay it aside afterwards and say nothing about it." This review, from Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper, was one of the first receptions to Emily Brontë's novel, and concluded with the line, "we must leave it to our readers to decide what sort of a book it is." The conclusion in this review, which is the extent of praise the novel received on its publication, pertains not only to the novel Wuthering Heights but to Emily Brontë herself; it is up to readers to determine what type of writer Brontë was: Besides Wuthering Heights, only a few poems of hers exist and precious little of her personal history exists to complement those writings. Thus, in order to ascertain what type of writer Brontë was, critics must speculate based on a limited family history, some poems, and one excellent novel. Brontë was one of six children born to Reverend Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell Brontë.

Born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, on July 30, 1818, she was the sister of Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Anne, and Branwell. Her family moved to Haworth when she was two years old, and here she first experienced the moors, a part of the Pennine Chain of mountains, andhere she lived until she died 30 years later. A variety of conflicting influences shaped her life. Her father, of Irish descent, was known for his poetry and imagination even though he was the cleric. Her mother, a staunch Methodist, died when Emily was only three years old, so what she knew of her she learned from her siblings and her Aunt Elizabeth (Maria's sister), who raised the children after Maria's death. Elizabeth brought a religious fervor to the house that Brontë soon rejected. Brontë's environment shaped her life and her work. The village of Haworth was isolated and surrounded by moors; thus, the one world she knew and lived in became the setting for her only novel. Paralleling her own life, she creates motherless characters in Wuthering Heights. Writing was a means of amusement for the Brontë children.

After the two oldest sisters died, the remaining siblings began writing plays and poems, creating a world called Angria and Gondal. These worlds became little books and the sources for later poetry and prose. Emily Brontë went to school, but she was unable to stay there. Possessing a reclusive nature, she had longings and desires for her home on the moors, which prompted her return home after a scant three months. In the following year, 1837, she attempted to teach school. This endeavor lasted eight months, but she could not handle the stress and again returned home. In 1842 she went with Charlotte to Brussels to study foreign languages and school management in order to open a school in Haworth. Brontë had success there. One of her professors stated that she "had a head for logic and a capability for argument, unusual in a man, and rare indeed in a woman," but she returned to Haworth when her aunt died in 1843. Living with her father at the parsonage in Haworth, this became a period of creativity. Although the earliest dated poem is from 1836, the majority of her poetry that survives was written during this time.

Like most authors, Emily Brontë was a product of her environment, and this directly influenced her writing. During her life she had no close friends, was interested in mysticism, and enjoyed her solitude outdoors. All of these elements grace both her poems and Wuthering Heights. In fact, many contemporary critics praise Emily Brontë first and foremost as a poet, marveling at the poetic nature of Wuthering Heights. In 1845 Charlotte found some of the poetry that Emily had been writing and eventually persuaded her sister to attempt to publish her work. Charlotte and Emily, along with their sister Anne, eventually published a collection of poems under the male names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Each pseudonym begins with the same consonant as the writer's name. The sisters paid to have the collection published, and even though it only sold two copies, they were undaunted and continued to write. This time each sister wrote a novel. Evidence suggests that Emily Brontë began writing Wuthering Heights in December 1845 and completed it the next year.

A year after that, in July of 1847, Wuthering Heights was accepted for publication; however, it was not printed until December, following the success of Jane Eyre. Although Wuthering Heights did not meet with the critical success Jane Eyre received, contemporary critics tend to consider Emily the best writer of the Brontë sisters. Emily Brontë's highly imaginative novel of passion and hate was too savage and animal-like and clumsy in its own day and time, but contemporary audiences consider it mild. The fall following publication, Emily Brontë left home to attend her brother's funeral. She caught a severe cold that spread to her lungs, and she died of tuberculosis on December 19, 1848. Following the publication of poems, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Anne's novel Agnes Grey, audiences considered all three "Bells" to be one author. Confusion continued as Anne published The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Wuthering Heights was reissued with poems and a biographical notice by Charlotte. By this time, both Emily and Anne had died, and Charlotte succinctly stated how and why she and her sisters assumed the name of Bell.

Charlotte Brontë also provided insight into the life of her sister. Long after its initial publication and subsequent death of its author, Wuthering Heights has become one of the classics of English literature. After the reissue of Emily Brontë's text, the editors of the Examiner commented upon Charlotte's introduction. Their words and sentiments are often echoed by admirers of Wuthering Heights: "We have only most unfeignedly to deplore the blight which fell prematurely on sure rich intellectual promise, and to regret that natures so rare and noble should so early have passed away." Emily Bronte - Biography and Works. Search Texts, Read Online. Discuss. Emily Bronte Biography of Emily Bronte Emily Bronte (1818-1849), English author and one of the famed Bronte sisters wrote Wuthering Heights (1847); Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed youï¿½haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believeï¿½I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me alwaysï¿½take any formï¿½drive me mad!

only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul! First published under Emilyï¿½s pseudonym Ellis Bell, the combination of its structure and elements of passion, mystery and doomed love as well as social commentary have made Wuthering Heights an enduring masterpiece. Set in 18th Century England when social and economic values were changing and land ownership did not always the man make, it is a world of patriarchal values juxtaposed with the natural elements. Bronte explores themes of revenge, religion, class and prejudice while plumbing the depths of the metaphysical and human psyche. Bronteï¿½s own home in the bleak Yorkshire moors provides the setting for the at-times other-worldly passions of the Byronic Heathcliff and Catherine. Also having written much poetry, Emily Bronteï¿½s works did not receive wide acclaim until after her death at the age of thirty. Wuthering Heights is still in print today and has inspired numerous television and feature film adaptations. As with most of the Bronte sisterï¿½s popular novels, people have tried to find biographical parallels in them.

Emily has been characterised to mythic proportions as deeply spiritual, free-spirited and reclusive as well as intensely creative and passionate, an icon to tortured genius. Emily Bronte was born on 30 July 1818 at 74 Market Street in Thornton, Bradford, Yorkshire, England. She was the fourth daughter of Maria Branwell (1783-1821), who died of cancer when Emily was just three years old, and Irish clergyman Patrick Bronte (1777-1861). After her youngest sister Anne (1820-1849) was born the Bronteï¿½s moved to the village of Haworth where Patrick had been appointed rector. Emily had four older siblings; Maria (1814-1825), Elizabeth (1815-1825), Charlotte (1816-1855) and Patrick Branwell ï¿½Branwellï¿½ (1817-1848).

Emilyï¿½s ï¿½Aunt [Elizabeth] Branwellï¿½ (1776-1842) had moved in to the Parsonage after her sister Mariaï¿½s death to help nursemaids Nancy and Sarah Gars raise the six young children. In 1824, Emily, with her four sisters entered the Clergy Daughterï¿½s School at Cowan Bridge, near Kirkby Lonsdale. When Maria and Elizabeth died there a year later of tuberculosis, she and Charlotte returned home to Haworth. Their father was a quiet man and often spent his spare time alone, so, the motherless children entertained themselves reading the works of William Shakespeare , Virgil , John Milton , and the Bible and played the piano, did needlepoint, and told each other stories. The four often ï¿½paired upï¿½; Charlotte and Branwell started writing of their imaginary world ï¿½Angriaï¿½, Emily and Anne writing of its rival, ï¿½Gondalï¿½. Penning their kingdomsï¿½ histories and developing characters to populate them, the young Bronte girls found a creative outlet in writing stories and poetry.

Emily was becoming an independent and opinionated young woman as her poem ï¿½The Old Stoicï¿½ reveals; And if I pray, the only prayer That moves my lips for me Is, ï¿½Leave the heart that now I bear, And give me liberty!ï¿½ In 1835 Emily enrolled at Miss Wooler's school at Roe Head, Mirfield where Charlotte was teaching, but she soon returned home when she became profoundly homesick and ill. After a few years as governess at Law Hill Hall in Halifax, West Yorkshire, Emily and her sisters Charlotte and Anne travelled to Brussels, Belgium in 1842. There at the Pensionnat Heger under teacher Constantin Heger they immersed themselves in the study of French, German and literature with the aim of starting their own school someday. When their Aunt Branwell died Emily alone returned to Haworth for her funeral and stayed on there, just her and her father. She helped around the home and continued writing and editing her poems. By 1845 her sisters had given up their dream of starting their own school and the three were together at Haworth again.

It was Charlotteï¿½s idea to publish the poems of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell in 1846. The following year Wuthering Heights was published to mixed reviews, although it was soon lauded as an original and innovative tragic romance. Tragedy loomed large in Emilyï¿½s life as well: her brother Branwell had become an alcoholic and addicted to opium and the family were constantly dealing with his depressions and at times mad ravings. He died in 1848 and while at his funeral Emily caught a cold and died soon after, on 19 December 1848. She now rests with her mother and father and sisters Charlotte, Maria, and Elizabeth and brother Branwell in the family vault at the Church of Saint Michael and All Angels in Haworth, West Yorkshire, England. Yet, still, in eveningï¿½s quiet hour, With never-failing thankfulness, I welcome thee, Benignant Power; Sure solacer of human cares, And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!ï¿½ï¿½To Imaginationï¿½ Biography written by C. D. Merriman for Jalic Inc. Copyright Jalic Inc.

2007. All Rights Reserved. The above biography is copyrighted. Do not republish it without permission. Forum Discussions on Emily Bronte Recent Forum Posts on Emily Bronte I have a question for you......... why Heathcliff decided to tak his revenge upon the others???????????... Posted By dilandilan in Bronte, Emily || 0 Replies A few notes on Wuthering Heights I just finished rereading Wuthering Heights. I first read the book about forty years ago. In my opinion, Wuthering Heights is an unique novel. No other novel approaches it in character, plot and theme. It is a great novel, no doubt about it. Emily Bronte was ahead of her time. Considering that she wrote Wuthering Heights in the late 1840s, it's amazing what she does with character. All of the main characters are anti-social and far from being admirable. It is a pessimistic novel. It stands head and shoulders above all the other novels written during that time. Wuthering Heights must be considered one of the great novels of all time....

Posted By Jassy Melson in Bronte, Emily || 0 Replies Diagnosing Heathcliff & Cathy I'm doing a speech on Wuthering Heights in a few weeks & I thought the topic of my speech would be the modern diagnosis of Heathcliff & Cathy. I'm a literature fan but also am an Abnormal Psychology Major, so of course, I come up with a topic like this. :ihih: I want to know what your guys' opinions on my diagnosis is. I believe that Cathy has Histrionic Personality Disorder. Here is the Diagnostic Criteria: Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, including an excessive need for approval and inappropriate seductiveness, u... Posted By Homers_child in Bronte, Emily || 7 Replies Sex in Wuthering Heights I was told by a teacher that there were two different sex scenes or sex references in Wuthering Heights before chapter 21. This teacher has yet to tell our class what they are yet, I was wondering if anyone already knew what she might be talking about?

I have yet to find them myself and I have searched multiple forums and articles online and none of them mention anything about two "sex scenes" before chapter 21.... Posted By NakimandEmustan in Bronte, Emily || 12 Replies hi my doctor asked us to make a research about the tune of WH i need help please:rolleyes5:... Posted By samo in Bronte, Emily || 4 Replies Wuthering Heights and class conflict I was thinking about this novel the other day, and thought that maybe the characters of Heathcliff and Cathy represent different sides of the economic spectrum. Heathcliff is a gypsy, at the very bottom of the social ladder, almost a pariah. He is an orphan/abandoned child, and gets a chance to raise his social status after being adopted by the Earnshaws. However, he becomes angry when the rich, represented by Cathy, remain just as aloof and indifferent to him after he becomes wealthy as before. Then, Cathy dies, thus symbolizing the destruction of the upper class, leaving Heathciff lost in grief. After Heathcliff's death the two are reconciled; implying that the only way the upper lower cl...

Posted By Stendhal in Bronte, Emily || 2 Replies Master pls come in plsss!!! 1. How are the revolutions in France and America in 1771- 1801 portrayed in the novel? 2. How did the revolutions in France and America in 1771-1801 portrayed the attitude of people during that time? 3. How did the romantic period in England affect the theme of the novel Wuthering Heights? please answer guys i need it badly... thanks!... Posted By JoshuaLandicho in Bronte, Emily || 1 Reply Dear everyone, Help me to find the answer of question Do you agree that Heathcliff is a tragic figure who evokes sympathy? Give reasons in support of your answer. Waiting for reply Jasvinder... Posted By Rupal in Bronte, Emily || 3 Replies guys can you help me in the answer here? How did the romantic period in england affect the theme of the novel Wuthering Heights? i need your answer as soon as possible pls....:bawling::bawling::bawling::bawling: ... Posted By JoshuaLandicho in Bronte, Emily || 2 Replies what did he mean?

(heathcliff) hey there, before heathcliff died he said he had to reach something (talked of struggling to reach a shore..metaphore thing) and that he was close to his aim... but what was this aim.. this chases me since I've finished the story. did he want to die to be united with cathy in death or did he want something else?? help me, take a look at the end of the story, remember the facts and tell me what you think .. thx:wave:... Posted By inbetween in Bronte, Emily || 3 Replies (hey girls)ain't heathcliff hot? hey girls... this is no sublime topic and no intellectual discussion .. I just want to know if I'm the only one who wished she could have jumped into the story to console heathcliff (or perhaps quarrel with him)... tell me if my taste in men is strange or if you share my opinion (I do apologise to all boys for most of them won't be able to say anything about this)... Posted By inbetween in Bronte, Emily || 20 Replies Did any one catch Wuthering Heights on ITV over the bank holiday?

It showed once again how good the BBC is at costume Drama. ITV should stick to soaps, game shows and the X factor.... Posted By prendrelemick in Bronte, Emily || 7 Replies

Question: Which of the Bronte sisters wrote Wuthering Heights?
Answer: Emily